Mountain fire
As noted in my profile one of my favorite places to hang out is in the Tonto National Forest near my home. Monday last week I walked down a wash west of Horseshoe Reservoir, one not visited often judging by the dense vegetation along the route. The week before that I walked an area along a branch of the same wash on the south side of the road. This week many of those observations are now ash. As are these from May 24. A human-caused fire burned over 7000 acres late last week, including all three routes. The only good news is that the blaze stopped short of the site where I found this imperiled critter.
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I trust you will return and document how this area responds to the burn.
Indeed I will. It feels somewhat fortuitous to have visited the area so recently prior to the fire. There's a partial catalog of what was there before. Looks like the high temperatures will ameliorate next week and if the area is opened to visitation again I hope to get an impression of the immediate aftermath. I was looking forward to placing a trailcam in the wash near where I found the bear scat, but nope. Not now. I hope it made it down the wash ahead of the fire.
It just dawned on me you were right in the heart of the now burned area! Thankfully, you weren't there during the fire. Fingers crossed you don't find bear or other mammal bones when you go back :-(
So sad but also a unique opportunity for you. Looking foreard to your future posts
Glad you were able to document the area before the burn. We live in a changing landscape and perhaps our first duty is to observe and witness.
The only constant is change. The Tonto is lucky to have an expert such as you document its renewal and regeneration, as the old is swept away and the new takes hold.
I paid a visit yesterday to the first two areas listed above. Not many survivors south of the road, but there were some exceptions. The route was much easier to traverse though. The wash to the north was a little more broken. Some areas were burned to the wash edge, others unburned. The lower end of the wash near the springs had been hit with fire retardant and many plants were spattered with red speckles. The edge of the fire in the canyon was halted there. There was sign of a fire crew traversing the wash - tracks, cut branches and such. Bird and insect life in the wash seemed relatively unaffected.
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